Public Financial Management for PRSP - Deutsches Institut für ...
Public Financial Management for PRSP - Deutsches Institut für ...
Public Financial Management for PRSP - Deutsches Institut für ...
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Stefan Leiderer et al.<br />
The main research question <strong>for</strong> this case study is there<strong>for</strong>e the following:<br />
What are the major constraints in <strong>Public</strong> <strong>Financial</strong> <strong>Management</strong> (PFM) at the<br />
central and local government level <strong>for</strong> implementing the Malawi Poverty<br />
Reduction Strategy (MPRS), particularly in the education and health sectors?<br />
Special attention is paid to the following PFM coordination processes:<br />
— Between central and local government level in general (vertical coordination);<br />
— Between education and health sector ministries and their respective<br />
deconcentrated units (vertical-sectoral coordination);<br />
— Between various administrative units and other institutions at the local<br />
level (horizontal-local coordination).<br />
The study also aims at identifying starting points <strong>for</strong> possible solutions to<br />
overcome these challenges.<br />
3.2 Research approach<br />
The research approach selected <strong>for</strong> this study is mainly qualitative and the<br />
overall research design is a country case study. The rationale behind this<br />
choice is that the interrelations between PRS implementation, decentralisation<br />
and PFM – even PFM as such – are very complex and might take very<br />
different <strong>for</strong>ms in different country contexts. There<strong>for</strong>e, it can be assumed<br />
that meaningful results can only be gained by studying a particular case in<br />
detail. Malawi was identified as an ideal showcase in many aspects, being a<br />
poor sub-Saharan African country. Nevertheless, the overall aim of this study<br />
is to identify typical challenges and to carefully draw generalisations that<br />
could apply to similar processes in other developing countries as well. For<br />
this purpose, it was deemed appropriate to attempt to gain a genuine and<br />
thorough understanding of all aspects and underlying mechanisms of in<strong>for</strong>mal<br />
practices of public financial management, in particular processes of one<br />
specific case rather than trying to paint a broad but shallow picture of the<br />
challenges <strong>for</strong> sound PFM in Malawi. In an ef<strong>for</strong>t to gain such a thorough<br />
understanding, the research was even further narrowed down by concentrating<br />
on PFM in two sectors, namely health and education. Both sectors feature<br />
prominently in Malawi’s <strong>PRSP</strong> and are at the same time considered pilot<br />
sectors <strong>for</strong> its decentralisation policy.<br />
42 German Development <strong>Institut</strong>e